New lenses

"Actually, the cheerleading sequences are one of the few things I don’t like about the film, since lesbians are far more likely to fall in love with a girl’s stray curl or delicate cheekbones than FULL-ON TITS."

This was a in a review for an old, very camp but by all accounts amusing, iconic lesbian film. This statement was affirmed in the comments section of the review,  and it was somewhat of an epiphany for me.

In figuring out if I was attracted to women, I was asking from the point of view of attractiveness as it is presented to us for MALE consumption.

I struggled with understanding the concept of sexual attraction. 

We receive lots of messages that a sexy woman equals instant arousal in a man. This is a sexist idea, really, suggesting that men are at the mercy of their erections. This moves from being unfair to being downright dangerous in the context of rape culture... that women need to guard their behaviour and and appearance because of the lack of self control of men. But I digress.

I didn't feel any kind of rumbling in my nethers for either gender, so I was confused. But when I think about all sorts of scenarios from my past, and tie it to the concept in the above quote? Then maybe I've been in love dozens of times. And that might be with an aspect of a woman's appearance, or might be her sense of humour, it might be her intelligence. It doesn't mean I instantly feel aroused and want to jump into bed with them.

And that was certainly the case with Nyah. When I reflect on the last few years, I have always been interested in her. Memories of our brief exchanges at our workplace have stuck with me in remarkable detail. And what drew us together originally was good old fashioned chemistry along with the enjoyment of intelligent conversation,  shared values and mutual understanding of some our life experiences. I didn't look at her boobs and go "Whoar!"

That said, I experience physical desire for her that I do not remember experiencing since I was a teenager. And that wasn't and isn't about arousal. It is about a desire for physical closeness and intimacy.

And that, I suppose, is the key.

Boobs are awesome, but the heart, soul and mind are where beauty resides and true love blossoms. 

For me, to look for that in a man seems foreign.

The heart, soul, mind...and body...of a woman is where I feel at home.

Assumptions

When I first started wondering if I was a lesbian, I grappled with issues around presentation. I had read books about lesbian history, and all about the coded dressing that went on when lesbians couldn’t be out and proud… labrys earrings and pinky rings with a wink and a nudge. Stereotypes lived on with the idea in my head that most lesbians dressed like male truck drivers in steel capped boots and flannel shirts. The books I had read about middle aged women discovering their attraction to women advised that they go and mix and mingle with the ‘lesbian community.’ But…. how do you do that? For a start, I didn’t know where I’d look. And if lesbians dress like men, then how on earth would I fit in?

I read Lisa Diamond’s book about sexual fluidity, and got quite stroppy about labelling. Why have a label? I don’t need one. Plenty are doing without. I continue to be confused by all the issues around labelling and presentation, and even queer media seems to have different views.

Even in the last week, I read an article about femme invisibility being a ‘dirty secret’ of the queer community. That is, the lesbian community largely presenting as butch, and excluding and erasing women who identified as lesbian, but presented in a feminine way. You know - ‘You’re too pretty to be a lesbian.”

Then on the other hand, this piece was posted by an online magazine called ‘PRIDE’ which claims to be be a platform for queer millenials. Queer millenials seem to be throwing off labels, which then seems contrary to this piece which reinforces stereotypes about lesbians wearing boots and flannel shirts.

This is so incredibly problematic, as it is not only a community being non-inclusive, but doing so to the point of reinforcing stereotypes.

But this still happens, and I am utterly puzzled as to why. I tried joining a few lesbian Facebook groups, and the ‘exclusivity’ was annoying. I heard about a local lesbian event, and asked the administrator of one of the groups if she’d post it for member. “Oh, I’ll see what the organiser says. But its probably not necessary - its a well known event in the community.”

I see.

What if I don’t belong to ‘the community’ yet? How will I find out? Remember back at Stage One, where the books said ‘find the lesbian community?’ Well, how is that going to happen when the ‘community’ cloaks itself in some kind of exclusiveness?

I can understand discretion if you are doing something that is generally not approved of in society, but has ‘the community’ not realised that we have equality on pretty much all fronts? Any discrimination that lesbians face won’t be because they're gay - it will be because they’re women.

Other online magazines have been exploring the idea of doing away with labels, and celebrities like Miley Cyrus talk about ‘fluidity’ rather than taking on sexual identities related to attraction to any particular gender.

While I have been pondering what label to wear, I have enthusiastically posted articles about not labelling.

Then a lesbian friend said “But I don’t want people assuming I’m straight.”

She raised an excellent point, but I have explored that a bit further in my own personal context. I still don’t have a set identity. Other people label me as a lesbian, and that’s fine. I suppose I resist labelling because I think that there are more important defining things about me as a person than the gender of the person I’m in a romantic relationship with. In any case, labelling sexual identities is a relatively new phenomenon. We can thank the Victorians and their urge to catalogue and classify everything for that. 

And then I hit on it.

I don’t want people assuming I’m with a man.

I don’t want people assuming I’m married.

I don’t want people assuming I’m coupled at all.

I don’t want those things for anyone, actually.

Perhaps it was not so much that I don't want assumptions made about who I'm attracted to or romantically involved with or deeply in love with or having sex with. Because that's kind of personal, right? But more that I don't want about assumptions made about which societal box I fit into. As the writer of the article in DIVA said, In fact, by self-labelling as gay, my real intended meaning is that I don't fit the heteronormative category.

I remember when I was a newlywed nineteen year old I took a bit of pleasure in subverting people’s ideas about what I should be. So I suppose that’s an example in and of itself. 

Don’t assume that a nineteen year old isn't married, and don’t assume a nearly forty year old is.

And don’t assume all lesbians wear flannel.

Finding my tribes

Photo credit:www.gaynz.com

As the New Zealand election campaign ramps up, I have, for the first time, begun attending election forums where candidates from each party put forward their policies about specific issues.  So far I had been to a forum on women's issues, education, and this week I went to the only forum in Auckland covering LGBTI issues.
This popped up on my 'events' on Facebook, and at first I dismissed it as irrelevant.  I have been resistant to the idea of being a part of the LGBTI community, because I didn't feel any need to for my own personal reasons, and maybe partly because I wasn't sure I fitted anywhere within the LGBTI alphabet soup.  Books I'd read said to go out and find the lesbians and hang out with them, but as a woman under 40 I wasn't sure if 'Lesbian Games Night' at the local Women's Centre (the only lesbian social activity I could find) was really going to be my thing.

I wondered what 'issues' might be relevant to the LGBTI community, because it seemed to me that many of the battles of the past had been won.

When I was a young Mum, I sought out the support of other people like me.  I found I was always a bit of a misfit amongst my mother peers, who were sometimes older, and mostly more wealthy than me.  However, we found common ground in our parenting styles, and for a long time I was a member of a mother-to-mother support group where I could be with mothers who mothered like me.  We perhaps had very little else in common other than that we had particular beliefs about how babies should be parented.  Often we talked about the solidarity and encouragement we felt from being with members of our 'tribe.'   I have recently left that organisation, simply because I have moved into new stages and my 'babies' are now aged five and over. When it comes to parenting, my concerns are more about education and behaviour than about sleep and feeding.

As I was driving home one evening (I do lots of thinking while I drive) it occurred to me that my tribe alliances were shifting.  I was becoming more interested and concerned about issues that effect different parts of me - issues that are important to me as a student, issues that are important to me as a mother of school children, issues that are important to me as a member of the LGBTI community.  Then it struck me - I had identified myself as being part of a community that I had initially dismissed as not needing.  I don't think it was appropriate to go looking for that community a year ago, but I suppose over time I have grown into it.

I wrote about a lack of hostility that I feel as a queer middle aged woman, so I took for granted that this lack of hostility exists everywhere.  However, it occurred to me that there are still battles to fight.  Adoption law needs overhauling, and transsexual people are facing uphill battles around how they are treated in the health and prison systems and within human rights legislation.  I am not being forcibly separated from my children and haven't lost my job because I'm in a lesbian relationship.  I realised that I take this for granted, but it wasn't always this way.  It is a great credit to activists before me that I can take these liberties for granted - I'm sure they hoped for a world where this might be possible.

So I think its only reasonable to 'pay it forward' so to speak.  I don't have to fight for the freedom to live how I choose, and if dealing with people's assumptions is the worst I have to deal with, then life is good.  At this particular time in my life it might only be weighing up issues in order to choose who to tick on a ballot paper, but I suppose turning up at a public forum to hear what the issues are to begin with is a start.

I learned more than I thought I would.  The visibly awkward right wing participants felt the world was rosy, but the gay/trans/ally candidates from other parties had a different story to tell.  I learned about gender discrimination and heterosexism in sexual health matters, that trans people have to fight to be recognised as human under our human rights legislation, and that things were not as rosy as we think for queer high school students, who still face unacceptable levels of bullying, and schools that are failing to keep them safe.

Afterwards, Nyah and I had a discussion about how these things would affect our children and her grandchildren.  These weren't just LGBTI issues, but issues that had the potential to touch all of both our families.

Children are not islands and it take a village to raise them.  This forum raised issues that could be a concern to me as a member of the LGBTI community, but moreso are a concern to mine and my partner's children and grandchildren.  Is my son going to be taunted at high school for having a lesbian mother?  Why should Nyah's granddaughter be the assumed conduit to keep boys safe from the HPV virus?  What if one of our children or granddchildren is gay?  Will they be safe at their school?  If one of them is actually a gender not aligned with their sex?  How will the world and the law see them?

They are issues for us as members of the LGBTI community.  But they are also issues for everyone.

Rundown of the AUSA Pride Week LGBTI election forum are here.http://www.liveblogpro.com/event/53fec1060e4a85d4718b458d

A bibliography of self discovery

I'm quite good at researching stuff.  When it comes to children's issues, mothers' issues, social issues....just stuff I'm interested in, I will read.  I read sociology books for fun.  I'm that nerdy girly swot.  So, when it finally became time to start looking at myself, I started to try to track down every website, web article and book I could get my hands on.  I'm still reading, and I'm still learning things.  And everything is shaking down just as it needs to.  Here is a list of books that I have found incredibly useful in my search for myself...

Outspoken: Coming out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand - Liz Lightfoot
University of Otago Press 2011
My review on Goodreads is here.  I actually put this book in this post last, but realised that it needed to go at the top of the list, as it was so important.  It was the book that finally kicked any vestiges of my internalised homophobia to the curb.  I initially read it because I know the author.  It may have changed my life.



Living two lives: Married to a man and in love with a woman (2nd edition) - Joanne Fleisher
2011 Lavender Visions Books 
I really recommend this book as it written in a very gentle and optimistic way.  This blog entry on the Huffington Post page sums up her own situation.




Late Bloomers: Awakening to Lesbianism After Forty - Robin McCoy
Writers Club Press 2000
I'm not forty yet, but I found the stories entertaining and interesting.  Many of the stories resonated, and offered reassurance that my experience was not a lone one.  It was one of those books where I saw my life in the pages before me.



Dear John, I love Jane - Candace Walsh and Laura Andre (editors)
Seal Press 2010







Married women who love women (2nd edition) - Carren Strock, Routledge 2008


And then I met this woman: Previously married women's journeys into lesbian relationships - Barbee J. Cassingham and Sally M. O'Neill

Mother Courage Press 1993
This book contained the stories of women living in 1970s and 80s America, where the culture would be very different to New Zealand in the 21st century, so I was less likely to meet the same challenges.  But some of the stories resonated strongly.

Look both ways: Bisexual politics - Jennifer Baumgardner
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2007

Remember Us: Women who love women, from Sappho to Liberation - Miriam Saphira (editor) with Heather McPherson and Dr Fran Marno
The Charlotte Museum Trust 2008
This was a great, easy read book about the history of lesbian culture in New Zealand

How To Come Out - Guide for Women Questioning Their Sexual Orientation - Essie Reis
Essie Reis 2012



Coming out and disclosures: LGBT persons across the lifespan - Ski Hunter
Harworth Press 2007
I found this book by chance at my local Salvation Army store.  I have not read it in its entirety, but did read the part about coming out later in life.  There were sections that made me gasp as I recognised my own life in the words before me.



Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire - Lisa M. Diamond
Harvard University Press 2008
At the time of writing, I'd not actually finished this book yet, but it offered up some great potential answers to questions I had about why I'd not 'known' about being attracted to women earlier in my life.





Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal - J. Jack HalberstamBeacon Press 2012
This book was revelatory to me while I was in the middle of the process of questioning everything about my life.  This book presented the possibility of a different kind of normal.


The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: a passionate guide for all of us - Felice Newman
Cleis Press 2004
Once upon a time I wouldn't have confessed to reading a sex guide.  Actually, I never would have read a sex guide.  But you know, if you are figuring stuff out about yourself you may as well cover all your bases.  In all seriousness, though, the byline for this book is 'a passionate guide for all of us.'  If nothing else, it answers questions about what lesbians actually do in the bedroom with ideas that aren't from the perspective of male fantasy porn.


All the reading I have done helped me understand that the patterns of my life are common to those of many women.  I have only listed the books I've read, but there is a lot online too.  I have posted them because this is a list I could have used, and maybe it will be useful for someone else.

No matter what you're questioning in life, I think it always helps to read.  It helps to explore your own feelings and your own past, and also to find what experts say, but I think most importantly, to find out what other people just like you have to say too.

I sourced my books from Amazon (on Kindle), Auckland City Libraries and Auckland Women's Centre.